In this note, I’ll introduce a practice that I learnt at ISTA. It’s called “Aspecting”. I’ll also describe in graphic detail how I used the tool to move forward in the healing of my childhood sexual abuse trauma. The detail to which I go may come across as ghastly to some. I’m doing so in service of providing clear instructions and examples to others on a similar path. Appropriate trigger warnings apply. Please read it when you feel ready to read it.

The intention of the Aspecting practice is to clear out energetic tightness from your subconscious towards a certain other human in your life so that you live freer and have a clear sense of what you need from your relationship with them.

The simplest form of such an energetic tightness is unexpressed words. There are many situations in life where we hold back from expressing our real thoughts. Such holding back creates energetic tension in your subconscious. From an Internal Family Systems lens, there is one part of you that wants to express something to a person in your life but because you don’t feel safe enough to do so or perhaps do not have the communication tools to express kindly, so other parts of you are activated to stop that part from blurting out things that you might regret later. So you end up with an energetic tension between two parts of you. Depending upon how old your relationship is with the person, this tightness may have seeded itself very early on in your life and may essentially take the form of childhood trauma. For example, when I was being sexually abused, there were parts of me that wanted to say "No" but couldn't because they were too afraid of the consequences, leading to energetic tightness in me.

A way to release the tightness and thereby heal (some of) the trauma is to express. But what if the other person is dead? Or if you are unwilling to responsibly own the impact of your expression on that person yet? Or you are afraid they’ll misunderstand what you are trying to communicate? That’s where Aspecting comes in.

In Aspecting, you express to yourself. It’s a bit like journaling but the form of Aspecting is such is that it allows for and invites a whole body expression - more expansive than sitting in a chair and writing in a journal.

The set up is as above. A couple of pillows placed in the middle of a yoga mat. You sit on one side. You call in the person you want to Aspect with on the other side. You speak for yourself, then you switch over to the other side and respond as if you were that person. When we relate to another person, a part of them lives on in us. It lives on in the form of our stories and our sense of who the other person is. Often when we engage with the other person, we are checking in with our own sense of who they are i.e. the part of them that lives on in us. When we are afraid of expressing something to them, it’s because when we checkin with the part of them that lives on in us, we predict a negative response and so we choose not to.

In Aspecting, we allow this predicted negative response to play out and be expressed. We first take our own seat and express (to whatever extent we feel comfortable expressing). And then we switch over to the other side, connect to the part of the other that lives in us and respond. We are taking on the role of the other and responding. Rinse and repeat.

Aspecting can be deep subconscious healing work if we can stay connected to our body through the process. In order to facilitate that body connection, there are a set of Emotional Release Tools that I will describe in another post. The simplest way to stay connected to the body while Aspecting is to shake. Shake, shake, shake. Trauma often lives ossified inside the body. Shaking moves trauma energy. If you’ve heard of Osho’s Dynamic Meditation, one of the key principles there is shaking. Shaking often comes up in many other spiritual practices that veer away from the mainstream stillness-based breath-focussed “mindful” paths — valuable in their own right, but often when it comes to deep trauma, they can foster dissociative tendencies. If you often float around in thought space when you sit down to meditate or experience a lot of hallucinations on psychedelics, you might be falling prey to this.

It’s common for people to Aspect with their fathers, mothers, ex-es, lovers. Alive or dead. One of my ISTA facilitators mentioned that she Aspects before important conversations with people she values in her life.

At my first ISTA L1 training in Austin, I Aspected with the first perpetrator of my childhood sexual abuse - my mother’s father, my grandfather. Before the ISTA training began, a fellow participany flying into Austin messaged the WhatsApp thread requesting a pickup from the airport. I was available so I offered a ride to them. They were planning to get a tattoo soon. A tattoo of their young self lovingly torturing and murdering their perpetrator. Their story (and the calm energy they shared it with) stayed with me as I worked through ISTA and played a major role in what I'm about to describe.

Back to the Aspecting. I sat down on one side. Looking over to the other side, I said “I call you in, Tukaram Pandurang Patil”.

I dove straight in.

With distraught, defeated angst, I said “Why did you do this to me?”.

He denied doing it. “What are you referring to? Nothing happened”

This was my biggest fear. It came true. (Of course it came true because it was me expressing in response so I responded from the place of my biggest fear - that’s the magic of Aspecting. It can surface and allow processing of one’s biggest fears).

“Don’t lie you, motherfucker. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You raped me.”

"How come you are bringing such nonsense up after all these years? I did nothing of the sorts. And you have no proof."

"I don't need any proof, you bastard. I'm gonna make sure you suffer."

"You won't be able to do anything. I am already dead. Anyways, you've always been weak. I'm strong. Remember how you were bullied in school. You have always been a weakling"

"Yes, I was weak. I was unable to stop you. Nor was I able to stand up to bullies in school. It was because of what you did that I became scared. I'm no longer that way. I'll show you what I am capable of."

"Go to hell. You don't have any power over me. I fucked you when I was alive and now you can't do anything about it because I'm dead already."

I sighed. I felt a release. That was the admission I was seeking and I had gotten it. I had succeeded over my own internal doubters.

"You admitted it. You admitted that you raped me.", I said in silent success.

At this point, I remembered the tattoo that my ISTA friend had described. And I drew out an energetic knife. I pushed him back. And ran that knife slowly carving a thin bloody line from his face all the way down to his genitals. When I reached his genitals, I plunged the knife in. Plunged it deep into the cock that had entered my body without my full consent. And twisted and turned the knife around till I had carved out a hole. All the while, I felt calm, content and loving. Then I proceeded to enter him and lovingly fuck him while continuing to use the knife to carve his face out. I came energetically and leaned back and got to my own seat.

He was lying there, disfigured and defeated.

"I have won. You have turned into the same monster I was."

I looked back calmly at him and said – "No, I have not."

Epilogue

I'm sharing the graphic details of the exercise above because I believe that it's a path to heal deep sexual trauma. Trauma that is carried by so many humans in the world today and interferes in their ability to lead a fulfilling life through a cacophony of seemingly unrelated symptoms – binge eating, ADHD, depressive cycles, sex, alcohol and drug addiction. Aspecting is a magically simple exercise yet taking it to the extent I did takes a lot of work and courage. I say this, not from a desire of patting my own back, but just to acknowledge that embodying the ghastliness of what I'm describing is not easy. Yet, I believe it's necessary to release the energetic tightness caused by such deep sexual trauma. Else the deep sexual trauma will leak out and hurt other actual humans in one's life. When I allow it to release in Aspecting, I hurt no one.

In Internal Family Systems, the procedure to work with the wounded, exiled parts is to first gain the trust of the Protectors. Rage is a Protector. What I allowed to be expressed in the Aspecting exercise above was my Protector part. The part that always wanted avenge my wounds but was too weak as a child to get it. This is the part that if not fully expressed in a safe container like Aspecting, will abuse other humans and perpetuate sexual trauma. I'm pretty sure that my grandfather was sexually abused as a child too. Or perhaps he faced deep physical and emotional abuse. Had he safely expressed the part in him that wanted revenge in an ISTA workshop, he might not have broken down to the point that he raped his own grandson – amongst, I'm sure, other children.

I'll be following this post up with other important critical steps in my work to release my sexual trauma. They fit together systematically like a wonderful healing procedure and (in my view) are quite replicable by other humans. I'd be happy to guide you through this if you feel so called.

Today, when I think of my grandfather, I am able to hold both aspects of his being. That he was a kind, strong man who instilled in me my love for history and geography and was an inspiration for me in building a strong, warrior physique. And that he raped me innumerable times from age 5-11. I can hold both the love I had for him and the hatred I have for him simultaneously. This, in my view, is the essence of spiritual work. To be able to expand your mind to hold paradoxes. Because human existence is full of paradoxes. And I would not be able to get here had I not worked through what I describe in the post.

May the abuser parts within each of us be blasted into oblivion.

| Om Namah Shivaya |